Now as far for the chips, i think they have them already but due to the high production / development costs
They are not showing it yet, because other MF could copy the basic design of the chips and they don't want that.
Maybe im talking bullshit big time here so lets call this my personal speculation (@ least an optimistic one) :-)
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It's not that they have the chips--they were never going to
have the chips. The chips are manufactured in China and immediately shipped to the next production house that will package and install them. That's the likely scenario.
So why are they not showing chips? Because they didn't receive engineering samples--this was a rocket run, they've got no test units at all. There's no chips to show, even though by now they've undoubtedly already been produced and are probably, at this very moment, being shipped somewhere for the next stage of production.
The chips undoubtedly exist right now, somewhere in the world--they taped out weeks ago. But even KNC cannot get their hands on one of them.
They taped out
months ago. Tapeout is just when you send your files to the fab (used to be on magnetic tape). The chips take a long time to physically produce and go through the fab's system. It's actually unlikely this was done as a bullet run.
The chips may or may not be finished. They could still be 'growing' inside the fab's vacuum chambers. Or maybe the wafers are finished and they're being packaged.
Once they're packaged, they'll be mounted on boards and those boards will be put inside the cases, and those cases will be shipped out to customers. KnC will have the chips for only a short period of time.
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